Article Sidebar
Published:
Sep 20, 2022Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publication rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Note: If you need to comply with your funding body policy, you can apply for the CC BY license after your manuscript is accepted for publication.
Main Article Content
The association between objectively measured physical activity and health-related quality of life, life-space mobility and successful ageing in older Indian adults
Abstract
Background: Longevity is increasing, accompanied by a rise in disability and chronic diseases with physical activity (PA) delaying disability, ensuring successful ageing (SA) and independent living in older adults.
Aim: This study aimed to determine objectively measure PA levels, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), life-space mobility and SA of older adults as well as their mutual associations.
Setting: KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa.
Methods: A total of 210 older adults aged 65–92 years were purposively sampled and completed the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey, the Life-Space Mobility, and Successful Ageing questionnaires. Physical activity levels were measured using an Omron Pedometer, which the participants wore for seven consecutive days.
Results: The average number of steps taken per day for the 7 days was 2025, with 98.6% of the entire study population classified as sedentary. The Vitality domain (one of 8 categorised) reflected the best health status (M = 59.9, s.d. ± 18.8) with a significant 93% of the participants indicating that they had not visited places outside their immediate neighbourhood (p < 0.0005). A significant, negative association between the average number of steps taken in 7 days and all three SA variables, namely, the physical (r = –0.152, p = 0.027), sociological (r = –0.148, p = 0.032) and psychological (r = –0.176, p = 0.010), and a significant, positive association with life-space mobility (r = 0.224, p = 0.001) was noted.
Conclusion: The majority of the older adults were sedentary, affecting their HRQoL, life-space mobility, and SA negatively.
Contribution: It is imperative to develop effective physical activity programmes to ensure successful ageing by improving older adults’ quality of life and physical activity levels.
